Mikhail Tal's great double thorn-pawn miniature vs the Sicilian Dragon

Hi all

There is an amazing game of Mikhail Tal played against Forbis which is a must see. Key moments

Video based on study analysis:

https://youtu.be/_9gnQXPLa-s

Forbis dares play the Sicilian Dragon against Tal:

The classic Yugoslav attack setup is constructed

This setup facilitates Be3 and Qd2 trying to swap off generally black's bishop on g7 later. It also means that the g4 square is not available which can be a nuisance if Black has moves like Ng4. The setup is the most popular approach going against the Sicilian Dragon and is considered the critical test.

A little bit of controversy weakening the dark squares around the King

A rook is sacrificed:

Knight sacrifice - the big threat of Ne7 checkmate

A disastrous blunder - h6 is a resource that seems to save black:

Threatening Qg7 checkmate

Did Tal miss this defensive resource - the Queen protects against Qg7 mate

Renewing the threat of Qg7 checkmate

Notice the double thorn pawns here - they really help grip the dark squares and provide great support for key dark squares in general. g7 is the most critical square which is underlined by both "thorn pawns". Incidentally, many of the great Sicilian defence classic games quite often feature "Thorn pawns". They create great tactical opportunities. For example this Vishy Anand classic game has a thorn pawn against White's King - which Vishy did a couple of piece sacrifices to celebrate:

Back to the main story

WOW - Qg7+ - forcing a neat checkmate

Checkmate!

Key Takeaway points

• "Thorn pawns" are like Goal hangers which are illegal in European football in general
• Losing the dark square bishop around the King is asking for trouble
• Tal actually had a win you can see in the variations with h6 at move 24 - very deep tactics indeed
• Two thorn pawns are better than one thorn pawn
• Check for really creative ways of exploiting weaknesses around the opponent's King
• Check out my Mikhail Tal youtube playlist and share with friends: https://kingscrusher.tv/tal

Bonus Video

If you like Mikhail Tal sacrifices check out this video in particular:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctLyPHckiws

Hope you enjoyed this blog :). Any likes and follows are really appreciated. Also, I also have some interesting chess courses at https://kingscrusher.tv/chesscourses to check out.
Cheers, K